Sunday, October 31, 2010

It all began last April when I discovered Beth Moore would be in Spokane in October. I prayed up whether I should buy tickets and how many. Being led to buy 3 tickets, reservations were made and Jay's daughter Lovella and some other friends got into the spirit of it to join me for the event that Beth dubbed, "The LORD has Spokane!" Below you can see the fabulous lunch we had at The Aloha Grill upon our early arrival into Spokane.

Lovella has come (reluctantly) from Hawaii to live in the wilds of Idaho for some time, so this was a blast from the past for her.

There was ONE table for two, and we ordered 'Plate Lunches" of Teryaki chicken on veggies, rice, pea salad and macaroni salad...all very native Hawaiian things to eat for lunch.

Beth's message was from Ephesians 4:1-16.

She spoke on the ONE-ness of God, the theme being,

"The sum total of every Divine equation is ONE".

One Father, One Son, One Holy Spirit =ONE

The Word for me was: "Pay the price! Do what it takes to fire up the flame to produce, to expand your gift." My gifts are teaching, encouragement and giving, and I've been in the process of really cranking down on those, so it was an affirmation for me to hear this

iterated by Beth and reiterated by Lovella on the way home.

"All of your work is meaningless if there is no love in it!"

and..."Forgive offenses because WE are offensive," Beth said. Unity in the church is more important that when or how we are offended.

However, if you don't respect your leadership, move to another church.

Fortunately for me, the respect I have for the leadership in my church is VERY high!

Getting to a Beth Moore event early and standing around for 1 1/2 hours to visit with others at the front of the line is all part of going to hear what God has for me. We did exactly that and were rewarded with seats on an isle and close to the front.

Below you see the picture I took of Beth presenting the owner of the restaurant at which she had had the pleasure of eating her lunch.

Beth always dresses in somewhat interesting clothing, and we were somewhat taken aback to find she was dressed like ME...black pants and a black V-neck, 3/4 sleeve shirt for Friday night.

Below you see how she is on Saturday speaking from Ephesians 4:14-16 in her more Beth-ish outfit with lace shirt under colorful and 'interesting' blouse under a brown vest. She'd collected fall leaves to spread on the stage because they don't have fall in Houston apparently.

She cracked us up, as usual, with humorous family stories to accompany a heavy message.

Below she joins Travis and another singer in the praise team for the Victory in Jesus song. I love how you can see a small screen of what was projected onto the big screens in the arena.

Travis Cottrell is an awesome worship leader, singer and piano player, so the experiece was rich in that regard too.

Also, God did a wonderful work to bless me in that I had this extra ticket in my pocket that my daughter was unable to use. I didn't feel led to call at the last moment to find someone for it, but merely kept it in my pocket. Just before the doors opened a young woman came along the line asking every ten feet or so if someone might have an extra ticket.

When she got to me, I smiled and told her I did. She just about fell down.

She'd been counting on the LORD to provide...and He did.

We serve and awesome God who provides for our every need. I was deeply disappointed that my daughter couldn't join us, and am grateful for how everything turned out for the best!And another thing: Just a few rows behind me, when I turned around to look at the full arena holding 5500 women, were four dear old friends from my Gateway church in The Dalles.

I am baking (whole) the 3rd largest as I write this, and we'll have a taste test tonight. If it is a 'keeper' I'll ax the biggest in half to save the seeds, and then bake it also.

Below on the right are the 7 (16 pounds) of a squash called Uncle David's Dessert Squash, noted for it sweetness. In fact the Fedco catalog states that some folks bake it into pies without any other sweetening. Stay tuned; I'll let you know if that is true.On the left is something out of this world. I planted 3 seeds for each hill. The hill the orange squashes came from was my Costata Romanesca Zucchini. I DID get 2 of those, but I also harvested, today, 25 pounds of this Orange Mysterious...along with the two other Butternut-ish ones.

Not shown are the 23 pounds of Butternut-like squashes from ONE hill. My dear gardening friend, Connie, gave me the seed for these from her father's squashes in North Dakota. I hope they are tasty because they did so well. So, I've off to save some seeds from the harvest, make some pie, and rustle up some squash grub for dinner for my DH. We LOVE winter squash, and I'm grateful for the 124 pounds harvested today.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

My words to the tune of the Beatles' song are different from Paul, John, George, and Ringo's Anywho...

Here I am setting out on my camping trip with my new hair; it is a means to an end, really. Wanting to grow it out a bit and wanting it curled has led to my first perm in about 25 or 30 years. It will relax soon and I can fuss with it to make it more to my liking.

I took this picture of myself while driving for Margaret, who INSISTS on a picture.

;)

Here, the welcoming committee greeted me loudly as I pulled into their empty campground. There were no othere campers! There were several stalwart folks in their RV's and travel trailers, and some in a couple of the cabins at Chief Timothy Recreation Area to the west of Lewiston. The weather was pretty cool, but I wanted to see if I could still do this.

I CAN!

Looky here: Setting this up was cake-ish. I'm glad I'd bought a new stepladder for the kitchen on my way because reaching the top of this miserable tent was not in the cards I'd dealt myself. This was a miserable tent because, basically, it was a screen-thingy with a rain fly. I was SO cold in the night that my full-length, fleece bathrobe was needed for covering. The new cot was not to my liking either because cold air raced into the space beneath the it...and my underside. Shivering all night long until finally getting up at 5 to go potty was pretty much the extent of my sleeping in the new tent.Bunnies romped around looking for some of my popcorn, I suppose. They awakened me in the night as they gnawed on acorns from the oak treees.

This was the view this morning after my coffee and daylight dawning.

The river is between the trees and the mountains. It was simply divine viewing.

I stepped out from under the trees momentarily to take this 'dawning' picture just as the sprinkling rain began. By 7:30 everything was packed up, and I was heading home for a hot bath and putting everything away.

All in all, this was a successful outing. I found out I can, and like, to do this. I want better equipment, including a stove to cook on. Just as I was finishing my coffee and making the skillet ready for bacon and eggs the sprinkling began in earnest. Being only 1.5 hours from home was nice in that I could look forward to surprising my dear husband and move on to the weekend chores. I LOVED! this, and I'll do it again. You bet!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Fridays flow easily at school these days. Only one of the girls comes, and that is merely to do her homework. She is diligent that way, and it honors me. Her big brother comes because it is the day the big boys and the little boys are here. One of my big boys has been missing lately, for health reasons, so it is a light day for me...as opposed to Mondays where all the big boys and the 6 girls are present.

Below you can see the budding geniuses, Gracie and Wyatt working and thinking. William is Wyatt's sidekick,

and you can see him working away on his Cursive writing assignment.

Carson is persuing some wayward spelling words during the test.

And Dillon is focusing on writing his spelling words in cursive,a task needing his full concentration!

A friend had too many blossoming Dinner Plate Dahlias; can you imagine???

She brought me this bouquet as a thank you for leading the Beth Moore Bible study we have each Wednesday evening.

Thank you, Jodi!!

The garden continues to grow some.

Tomatoes are slowly ripening, squashes are gaining size and thickening shells, and the flowers continue to bless us with divine color.